Benjamin Waddy Maughan was a house painter in London. In 1868, he invented the first water heater. He named this terrific invention “geyser”, after the hot springs. Maughan’s invention involved heating up the water by putting a burner underneath the cold water pipes. The burners would heat the water as it passed through the pipes. And voila – there would be hot water! His invention inspired the Norwegian engineer Edwin Ruud to make a water heater with a tank that would store the hot water. And the rest, as we say, is history.
Nowadays we just flip a switch and hot water comes out of our taps. It’s hard for us to imagine a time when this was not the case and heating water was a tedious and time-consuming affair. While readily available hot water makes our life easier, it is often used as a metaphor for discomfort. You ask someone how they are doing and if they say, “I am in hot water with this new deal,” what they are basically saying is that the world around them is stressing them out. Or that there is too much pressure on them. Being in hot water is synonymous with being in an uncomfortable spot. But does it always have to be so?
Let’s do a little experiment. Put a pot of water to boil. When the water is boiling, slip in an egg and a potato into the water. Let them boil for a while. Sounds like a recipe, doesn’t it? When the water, with the egg and the potato in it, has been boiling for a bit, you’ll notice that the egg is harder than it was. The boiling water makes it less likely to shatter. The potato, meanwhile, is softer than it was. You can mash it up now. Whether one is better than the other is irrelevant. Is being hard good? Is soft somehow bad?
One is protein and the other is a carb. Forget all that because that’s not what matters to us in this moment. The essence of the experiment is that both things were exposed to the same stimulus: hot water. The hot water does not make or break you, it just exists. What makes or breaks you is what you are made of. Now, a potato cannot become an egg and an egg cannot become a potato. But luckily, humans are quite versatile. We have the ability to make choices. You will notice that when you expose two people to the exact same stimulus, they end up making different choices. It is these choices that determine whether we are hard or soft, strong or weak, better or worse. When you are thrown in hot water, don’t get into the habit of complaining about it. Don’t start wishing for the water temperature to change. Instead, learn to make choices that improve you. Use the hot water as a stimulus for growth.
For example, if you are in a very demanding sales job, your targets and the pressure associated with them may be the hot water. Use that pressure to become better at your job. Learn new sales techniques and interesting pitches to make proposals and close sales. Sometimes, what we perceive as a difficult time is actually an opportunity to discover our hidden strengths. Almost all the people in the world that we admire, have been in boiling hot water at some point in their lives.
Even my life changed after I went through my own soak in boiling water. The environment would not change, so I did. I have three habits that you can inculcate to make the most of a stressful situation you find yourself in. The first habit is to stop complaining and comparing yourself to others. When you stop complaining, you begin to take responsibility. And don’t compare, because we cannot see the hardships other people are going through. Water is transparent, but we only have visibility over the boiling water in our own pot! The second habit is to acknowledge your situation and attempt to get stronger to pull yourself out of it. Instead of constantly fighting the pain, you must learn to work with it, to work despite it. Review the plan every day. Take one small step at a time and work your way out. The third habit to adopt is to keep yourself positive, no matter how hard things get. This may seem tough, but our mental well-being determines much of our abilities.
It’s important we nurture ourselves. Every day, write down three things you are grateful for. Listen to podcasts and watch videos that fill you with happiness and positivity. Do one thing to foster positivity every day as a habit. Remember, what the world throws at you is never in your control. You can only control what you do with it. You can choose to be a potato or an egg. What will you choose?
Excerpted with permission from One Habit a Day: 31 Habits to Transform Your Life, Ashdin Doctor, Westland Books.